Critic Reviews

It’s King Of Fighters. If you ever liked any of the king of fighters games, you should like this one as well. It has a total of 38 characters, which is pretty good, and the English menus help a lot for importers. As with most fighting games, the multi-player here is great. With lots of unlockable contents and just lots of fun. It's a solid 3D fighter, so it's worth it for any fighting game fan.

If you really liked the potential held by The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, The King of Fighters 2006 is the realization of that potential. It's not going to change the mind of anyone who is fervently anti-3D KOF, but it's the most solid “alternative fighting game” we've seen in a long time. If you love your fighting games, KOF '06 most certainly deserves a home in your library.

At the end of the day this is a game that delivers because of the direction it has received from Falcoon, SNK's designer. It really seems that his steady hand has made the difference between an average revision of an old series and reinterpreting the spark that made it successful in the first place. It should appeal to both the veteran King of Fighters fan and the newcomer alike, although for a purer King of Fighters experience the fanatics among us may be better served by King of Fighters XI which is being released at the same time.

After the horrid quality of the last King of Fighters game, one had to wonder if SNK had any idea what they were getting themselves into. Thankfully, they’ve learned from most of their mistakes and have given us a game that vastly improves upon its predecessor.

Are fighting games a solution to all the violence between kids nowadays? Maybe, maybe not. Who are we to pose such questions? In-game violence is not a felony, but rather a sport or a game feature. SNK know the rules of the game and they kept the traditional style of fighting games that got Fatal Fury and Street Fighter to the top back in the old days. With a touch of new graphics and more characters, KOF 2006 is a perfect game to take with you when you're attending a teenage birthday party. It's also a pretty good relaxation "tool", because battles are not as stressful as they were in other games of the same genre, but more praised by the press.

KOF2006 features both English and Japanese dialogue, but it's predictably dumb, with eye-rolling lines like "time to write your epitaph!" Extra modes include various party and mission modes, but these simply change the conditions of the fight, which typically increases the challenge but reduces the fun factor. The story modes should be more fleshed out, as they just seem like a series of random match-ups. KOF2006 will do the trick if you want a quick battle against a friend, but in the final analysis, this seems like case of "more is less".

KOF 2K6 is by no means the greatest fighting game ever, but it manages to meld 2D gameplay into a 3D game admirably. Fans of KOF, or 2D fighters in general, will find a lot to love here, and fans of 3D fighters will find some amusement within. But those who hated the original KOF:MI might still be put off by 2K6, and there are other, better 3D fighters out there. Still, 2K6 is a solid addition to your fighting game library, and for $30, it’s certainly worth a look. And hey, if you’re an SNK fan, there are enough oddball extras in the game to amuse you outside of the KOF franchise branding.

Had King of Fighters 2006 been released back in the crazy nineties, it might've had a chance to stand out in the crowded fighting genre. But we're all a little older and wiser now in 2006 and we've come to expect a bit more than a tired, rehashed 3-D fighter with tired, rehashed characters.

As we mentioned before, it's just not King Of Fighters. Series fans will pick up on this in moments while those less familiar with SNK's long-running franchise have no reason to put down Virtua Fighter, Tekken or Soul Calibur as Maximum Impact 2 offers absolutely nothing over these great existing examples of the genre. It's better than the first Maximum Impact, which is something, but only the most sheltered of gamer will be able to spend anything more than a couple of hours with this before reaching for something substantially more polished, versatile and enjoyable.